Notes on Lewis Porter's "John Coltrane: His Life and Music"
"Coltrane-Coltrane," Jean-Max Albert ( Wikimedia Commons ) Lewis Porter's John Coltrane: His Life and Music first came out in 1998, and, as far as I know, it's still the definitive, go-to critical overview of Coltrane's musical career. The research that went into this book is staggering, and the voices of Coltrane's predecessors, peers, friends, and admirers are generously heard throughout the book. The awesome, inevitable movement of history makes itself known in the small, revealing details—for instance, that Miles Davis first heard Coltrane as early as '46, when Coltrane was still in the navy and recorded with drummer Joe Theimer, whom Theimer mentioned thusly in a letter: "This session was inspired by John Coltrane [ sic ], a Bird discipline, whom 2 weeks after this session cut out of this 'land of fools' to go home and make his way in life..." The misspelling of the Coltrane family name, a Scottish inheritance, is a motif th...